


from the distance of the universe

by linumlea



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Hoshi no Koe AU, M/M, Minor Sawamura Daichi/Sugawara Koushi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:48:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22267432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linumlea/pseuds/linumlea
Summary: When traveling at speeds nearing the speed of light, the passage of time slows down relative to objects traveling slower. This leads to an interesting phenomenon - objects at high speeds experience less time passing than stationary objects do, and the closer the speed is to the speed of light, the more time slows down.That is part of the theoretical knowledge presented to Hinata upon his chance for his first interstellar mission. What it means is that when Hinata’s ship reaches its destination lightyears away, Kageyama will have aged years while Hinata merely months.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 3
Kudos: 40





	from the distance of the universe

“Hey, it’s me again,” Shouyou’s voice rang. It was crisp.

Tobio switched his phone to speaker, and sat down heavily on the bed, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands as he stared, unseeing, at the phone on the table. He has been waiting to listen to this transmission since the morning - his heart had started beating so fast when he saw it appear on the screen of his phone and its heavy drumming didn’t stop up until now, well into the evening, not until he heard Shouyou’s voice. It was only then that Tobio’s heartbeat slowed down and he was able to breathe again, taking in the air that came through the open window, flowing with the evening breeze, the curtain billowing with the force of it.

“I don’t even know if you are receiving those messages, you know,” Shouyou said. “Daichi-san says you should be getting them because as far as he knows the link is working, but since you can’t send anything back I just don’t know. It feels sorta like talking to myself, so I just imagine you on the other side of the line, listening and making faces. Sometimes I can almost hear you replying. Sometimes, I can almost hear you-”

Tobio swallowed. His vision was blurry.

“But I can’t really. So. I just imagine it. I wish I had spent more time before we left the Earth learning your voice so I could imagine it better now. But I guess you exist in my mind just fine - I can recall much and imagine the rest. I wonder what you’re doing right now, though. You never liked that sappy stuff - are you making faces now, listening to me?”

“No,” Tobio said into the ether.

“I bet you are.” Shouyou sighed. “Anyway. God, I wish I could show you what I’m seeing right now. It was all supposed to be top secret, but there’s no way I could keep anything from you long - we got sent to the other side of the galaxy. Isn’t it crazy? I’m on the other god damn side of the Milky Way. It’s been only a month for me, this mission. But Daichi said it’s been like three years on Earth. Three of your birthdays. Three Golden Weeks. Now you’ve seen more of that summer festival at the shrine on the hill than I ever will, which is, frankly, freaking unfair.”

Tobio’s face twitched involuntarily. For the past three years he had no heart to go to the summer festival near the place Shouyou and he lived at - they’ve been going together before, always, and now, without Shouyou, it was just wrong. It felt wrong to even turn around at night and find that the other side of the bed was empty. It felt wrong to look into the fridge. It felt wrong to do laundry. And it certainly would’ve felt even worse to go to the festival without Shouyou warm and corporeal by his side.

So they were even. He wished he could tell him that.

“I’ve been sending you messages whenever I was able to, but it must be weeks between them for you. Do you wait for them?”

Tobio nodded.

“I bet you’re like ‘whatever’ whenever something from me pops up, given your usual texting-back habits. Are you busy these days? Did working at that shop alongside training work out?”

“It did.”

“I hope it did. It sounded awesome when you told me your plans before we left. God, I can’t imagine it’s been whole years for you. It’s been only a few weeks, and I already miss you so horridly. I bet you don’t miss me leaving my clothes all over the place though. I know, I know, I’ll learn one day and then you won’t have to be bothered about it anymore. Maybe I’ll have learned by the time I’m back!”

Tobio’s hands clenched. He forgot about that - but he wished he could tell Shouyou that he didn’t mind that anymore, that mess that Shouyou tended to leave.

“I wish I could show you - we’re orbiting the planet that we’re supposed to check out. It’s so blue - like Earth, almost. But Earth is blue and brown and green, and this planet, I think it’s called R-6575, it’s just blue. Daichi said that it might be possible to send photos through the link so I’m going to try that later. It might take longer for them to arrive, though. You know, we weren’t supposed to send anything at all, but no one could bear the thought of it. It’s just us here. And you’re all the way there, living in a different time. I feel like I’ve fallen off the tracks of the normal timeline whenever I think about it. I miss the sun. I miss Earth. I miss our home.

“And I really, really miss you.” Shouyou sniffed. “Sorry. It’s just that I keep thinking - there is so much distance and so much time between us right now. I still have the image of you from the past in my mind - I don’t know what the current you looks like, is like. I don’t even know if you haven’t been sick. I don’t even know if you think about me at all. And I can’t stop thinking about how you could’ve- I don’t know. Anything. And I would have no way of knowing. The messages could be arriving and there could be no one there to listen to them.” Shouyou’s breath hitched. “That’s terrifying. I have to stop thinking about that. I’ve gotta go now - I’ll see about those photos to send you. I hope you’re okay. I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” Tobio said. The message ended, and the phone’s screen went back to default.

Most of them, the messages that arrived from Shouyou, were full of interferences, Shouyou’s voice often barely audible. This one was so clear Tobio could almost imagine it originated just miles, not lightyears, away.

He reached out for the phone, to save the message, along the others, to a designated folder. When Shouyou comes back-

When Shouyou comes back, a lot of things will be different. But he was most certainly going to make fun of Tobio for saving all those messages. Tobio wished he could tell him right now, in person, to fuck off. Wished he could look Shouyou in the eye and pick up Shouyou’s clothes again. Have him pressed to his back at night, warm and breathing, and moving even during his sleep, and dreaming,

But all Tobio can do these days is listen to the few messages on repeat, until he can recall them as easily as he recalls his own name. Until they play in his mind like a record, the pitch and the tone and the quality of Shouyou’s voice inscribed into the matter of Tobio’s memory, like a song.

It was a peculiar business, having a prospective astronaut for a partner. Shouyou was off on trainings for days at a time, weeks even. But that was alright, because he always came back when he said he would. He would run back in a flurry, a bag slung over his shoulder, and he would throw the doors of their home open, dash through the whole apartment, and jump at Tobio, regardless of what Tobio was doing. Sometimes Tobio berated him for it. Sometimes he did not.

“Tobio,” Shouyou said, putting down his bowl. He has been twitchy all day, dropping things and being a nuisance instead of a help while Tobio was trying to make them dinner after Shouyou came back from the institute and Tobio came back from work. Now, a strange, morose calm seemed to have engulfed Shouyou as he looked up over the table’s surface, gazing at Tobio’s face as he searched it, searched it, searched it, incessant, his eyes stopping on Tobio’s eyes, nose, mouth, ears, as if he wanted to have a perfect model of it in his mind. “Tobio, there’s something- Something I need to tell you.”

Tobio sat back, the food tasteless in his mouth. He swallowed it through a tightened throat. “What is it?”

Shouyou leaned on the table. “They want me to join the crew for the next interstellar research mission.”

Tobio didn’t think it was possible to forget how to breathe, but it happened to him anyway.

“Hinata!”

Shouyou was hauled backwards, at the last moment - the metal plate he has been securing twisted in place and bounced off the wall, the pressure having built up so much that it gained a life of its own. The plate hit the opposite wall and slowed down, floating in the middle of the corridor.

Shouyou’s heart, belatedly, started to thunder against his ribcage. “Fuck,” he said. 

Behind him, Daichi sighed and released the collar of Shouyou’s shirt. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked, exasperated. “Where are the security bolts? Why aren’t you wearing gloves or anything?”

Shouyou looked away. “Sorry. I thought I would do it quickly and it would be alright.”

“It’s not alright,” Daichi said. “It’s not just yourself you’re endangering, you know.” He pushed himself off the to the other side of the corridor, to where the wall has slowed down the metal plate, and pointed at a dent in the wall and a couple of wires that have been cut because of the impact and were floating uselessly.

Shouyou’s stomach clenched. “I’m sorry. I’ll fix it.”

“No.” Daichi shook his head, already pulling out gloves from his belt. “You’d be better off not doing anything for the rest of the day. If someone asks, tell them I said so.”

“But-”

“Go,” Daichi said. “I’m serious, Hinata. You’re distracted, and you know what happens when people are distracted in places like this.”

“People get hurt,” Shouyou said.

“Exactly.” Daichi hesitated. “If you wanna be useful, get me replacement wires from the maintenance compartment. What has got you so distracted, anyway?”

“Nothing,” Shouyou said. “Nothing, really.”

Daichi looked at him, squinting in doubt, but didn’t say anything, instead turning to secure the cut wires. Shouyou made his way down the corridor.

He was stupid, thinking about stupid Tobio stupid lightyears away, getting stupidly older while for the stupid Shouyou stupid time is barely passing-

He hissed in pain when he bumped, hard, into one of the protruding safety valves on the wall, and barely managed to suppress the urge to slam his hand against the wall in retaliation. What was the use of thinking about it? None!

And yet he couldn’t stop.

“I know you don’t like it when I touch anything, so I didn’t,” Tobio’s mom said, peering into Tobio’s childhood room after Tobio entered it and dropped his bag on the floor. “Just vacuumed from time to time.”

“Thanks.”

“Mhm,” his mom said. She hovered near the door. “It’s good to have you back here, you know,” she added. “Even if it’s just for a couple of days. Holidays must be so lonely since Shouyou is-”

“They are,” Tobio said. “I guess.”

She nodded and finally left.

Tobio sat down heavily on his bed and it creaked under his weight. It’s been a while since he has been to his childhood home last - two years? Three? The last time he came was with Shouyou, for holidays, at Tobio’s parents insistence that they should all spend time together, since Shouyou was family and Tobio never brought him around enough.

They always wanted Shouyou around. Ever since Tobio introduced them to him, all those years and years ago, when Shouyou and Tobio were both third years in high school and when it was starting to become apparent to Tobio that there was nothing that he could do about that thing that he has been carrying in his mind and heart all along, the carefully hidden, tiny but steadily growing feeling, the feeling that what was between Shouyou and him wasn’t quite enough.

It was really, really good that Shouyou felt the same, because Tobio didn’t know what he would’ve done otherwise. What he would have done if Shouyou had said that he could never think of Tobio that way.

But Shouyou had just bounced on his feet and in the next moment, right after Tobio had finally uttered the words he had been afraid of for weeks before, Shouyou’s lips were pressed to his own, and that was as much as Tobio got as a reply to his confession. Which, he supposed, wasn’t bad as far as replies went.

Tobio fell back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and then his head rolled to the side, his gaze resting on his desk, then beyond it, at the closet built into the wall.

He sat up suddenly, crossed the room, and pulled the closet’s doors open.

There it was.

A single photograph stuck to the inside of the closet doors, of Shouyou and him. He unpeeled it, sat back down on the bed and pressed the photograph against the wall of the desk standing right next to the bed, the tape which Tobio had initially used to hang the photograph in the closet still good enough to make the photograph stick to the wall of the desk.

He lied down again, staring at the photo.

He was making a weird face in it, as expected. But it was Shouyou’s fault.

Just like it was Shouyou’s idea to take the photo in the first place. It was the first time they were out together after Tobio had confessed, and Tobio was nervous. What made him even more nervous, as he waited and waited at the station, the clock ticking, time passing past the hour when Shouyou and he were supposed to meet, was that Shouyou was still not there.

Shouyou arrived nearly an hour late, barrelling out of the station, relief and guilt clear on his face when he saw that Tobio was still there, still waiting.

“What the fuck-” Tobio started to say.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Shouyou cried out. “My bus didn’t come! And the train was late! And my phone died! And-” He ran up to Tobio and twisted his hands into Tobio’s coat. “Please don’t dump me, I swear I’m never going to be late again!”

Tobio, rendered speechless, could only stare at Shouyou as Shouyou’s face fell more and more, until Shouyou looked crestfallen.

“I’m not dumping you,” Tobio finally managed to say. “No way. Just don’t be fucking late.”

Shouyou’s face lit up. “I solemnly vow to be never late again. Ever.”

And later he pulled Tobio into one of those booths standing out in the street, and made him agree to taking a photo, even with Tobio’s anxiety evident on this face. But while Tobio was standing awkwardly in the back and Shouyou was fiddling with the machine, he realized that they were there together. They were in that dumb photo booth together.

Him and Shouyou. Shouyou and him. Together. What a mind-blowing thing that was, the fact that somehow they even crossed paths at all. And now they were going out. Shouyou was his. And he supposed he was Shouyou’s.

Shouyou’s hair had been getting really long back in those days and Tobio couldn’t resist the urge to sink his fingers into it, gently enough that Shouyou had leaned into the touch. A few months later, when Shouyou finally cut it, Tobio silently declared it the worst day in human history, as was each subsequent occacion when Shouyou went out to get a haircut and his hair lost some of its length. It still was nice to slip his fingers into, and Tobio took advantage of it frequently, but it was never as nice as when it was long.

Maybe one day, when Shouyou is back, Tobio will ask him to keep his hair longer again. When Shouyou is back.

When they were this far from anything, all that appeared outside the ship’s viewing window in the common area was blackness dotted with speckles of light dust. There was no depth and no distance - beyond the thick glass was just a wall of black and white and yellow dots of varying sizes, but never bigger than a grain of sand. There was nothing to rest one’s eyes on between the ship and the stars so far away that they might as well not have been there at all. 

A flat, depthless wall.

It was just a perception, of course - Shouyou knew that there miles and miles stretched between his point of view and the points in space where the stars were burning steadily for millions of years. But the knowledge didn’t hold a candle to the feeling.

And every time Shouyou passed by the window - by the wall of darkness - he felt that he was lost without real ground underneath him and real sky above him. Back on Earth down and up were apparent.

In space, they didn’t have meaning at all. There wasn’t much to ground oneself against, and instead one was left to float aimlessly, and time passed as it pleased, as if the rules it adhered to only worked where the gravity of belonging kept one anchored.

It has only been a few months, and yet Shouyou was groundless.

They told him to be patient.

They told him that delays were expected - those missions were a complicated matter, a lot of factors could impact the travel time, and that from the last received reports it was clear that everything on the ship was going alright. That nothing was wrong.

But it didn’t change the fact that Shouyou was supposed to be back half a year ago and he wasn’t. Tobio has been waiting for six and a half years when he was supposed to only wait six.

How much longer is going to have to wait? How many more days-?

A touch to Tobio’s shoulder made him jump. His coworker’s concerned face hovered just behind him. “Are you okay? Like, you’ve been staring into space for a while now.”

“Yeah,” Tobio said. “I’m fine.”

“You sure? Have you been- Have you been eating at all? Cause I don’t remember the last time I saw you take lunch and you’re not looking that great, you know, like, you look like a stick now.”

Tobio started to shake his head, but the coworker was already tugging him out from behind the counter and into the back, where he pushed Tobio into the only chair and told him to wait.

But Tobio has been waiting for a long time now.

Shouyou was so late. So very, very late.

“Can you calm down with that leg? You’re making me nervous too,” Daichi said, tipping his chin at the incessant up-and-down movement of Shouyou’s leg that has started hours before and continued steadily, with Shouyou sitting there and staring into space. Daichi’s tone was cheery, but there was an undertone to it that spoke of fatigue. 

Shouyou froze. “Sorry,” he said. He managed to stay still for barely a few minutes before the urge to bounce his leg became too strong again. He leaned forward as much as he could in the restricting cradle of the safety belts, hiding his face in his hands as his leg bounced and bounced and bounced. “Daichi-san,” he said, his voice muffled. “What am I going to do?”

“With what?” Daichi asked calmly. The ship trembled minutely; someone in the seats behind them gasped, woken up from the wink of the sleep they were getting, and sighed when they saw that there was no apparent danger visible around them, just rows of their crew members sitting in the seats, all strapped in and waiting patiently for the ship to reach its programmed destination.

“You know what, Daichi-san,” Shouyou said. “How much longer until we get to Earth?”

“Two more hours. We’re slowing down now that we’ve entered the Solar System.”

Shouyou groaned.

“What are you so nervous about? We’re finally going home.”

“Yeah, we are. And it’s only been a few months for us, but back on Earth it’s been so long. So much could’ve happened.”

“You know we’re able to receive signals from Earth now, right? Have been for a while. You can check-”

“I don’t want to,” Shouyou said. “I don’t want to know until we get there.”

Daichi breathed in and out slowly. “It’s about Kageyama, isn’t it? You’re not the only one thinking about those things, Hinata. Even if I don’t want to think about it, it’s still in the back of my mind all the time.” He gritted his teeth. “Seven years is long, so long. And to ask anyone to wait this long just for you to come back nearly unchanged while they’ve been living such a different life so far away...” Daichi rubbed at his forehead. “But you don’t have anything to worry about, you know. Not with Kageyama. He would wait for you, as long as necessary, just for you.”

Shouyou’s heart squeezed and he grasped at his chest, the pain of anxiety crushing. “Would he? It’s been so long.”

“He would,” Daichi said.

Shouyou swallowed. “Before we left, Suga-san made me promise I would look out for you. To make sure that you come back. So I don’t think you have anything to worry about either.”

Daichi didn’t reply, but when Shouyou looked at him askance, Daichi was rubbing at the corners of his eyes, his mouth pressed into a thin line.

The ship trembled again, much more vigorously, and Shouyou’s hands clenched on the armrests. He looked up, at the ceiling. There wasn’t any window to look out through in the transportation chamber, the walls blank and barely one panel up in the front - though there, in the chamber, the directions didn’t have much significance - right within the captain’s reach, casting thin, soft light upwards.

Nothing to occupy himself with, except his thoughts. But the more he traveled inward, within himself, the more he found the coil of his nerves tightening until he could barely breathe. 

The turbulences strengthened until they became a near constant. Shouyou closed his eyes. From the fifteen person crew no one said a single word, minutes passing in silence, until the trembling stopped abruptly. 

“Two minutes to atmospheric entry,” the captain said in the still quiet that rang in Shouyou’s ears.

A shiver went down Shouyou’s spine, settling like a jitter at the bottom of his stomach; Shouyou startled when Daichi reached out between their seats to touch his arm. Daichi smiled, a little bit sad and tired, the shadows under his eyes apparent. They haven’t been getting much sleep lately, half from the nerves of preparing for the long way home, half from the anxiety about what would be waiting for them there.

“Entering the atmosphere in ten- nine-” the captain counted down, rising his voice above the intensifying hum of the machinery and the groan of the ship as the forces outside began to take it into their grasp.

Resolutely, Shouyou stared forward, at the seat of the person in front of him.

Tobio was pacing.

In the room a congregation of people from all sorts of backgrounds loitered, some pacing just like him, some just sitting and waiting, though all waited for the same - for the people they haven’t seen in seven years. Families, friends. Partners.

Each time someone passed by the glass-walled room, Tobio paused long enough to surmise they were not there to deliver the news and resumed his pacing. He could not stay still, the nervousness tugging at his limbs and at his thoughts until they were in constant motion just to somehow burn off the accumulating energy.

He couldn’t stop thinking either - about the time that has passed. About what Shouyou was going to say. About how little and how much has changed. About whether he was going to like Tobio’s new haircut or the plants that Tobio has been buying and somehow managing to keep alive. About the messages, the precious messages saved on Tobio phone and laptop in several copies. About Shouyou, and Shouyou’s voice, and Shouyou’s thoughts-

The doors opened when Tobio’s back was to them and he swirled in place. A young woman shrank away under the onslaught of so many a gaze and cleared her throat, clutching at a clipboard she was holding until her fingers were white and trembling. “They’re on the way,” she said. “Just passed the last control. Should be-”

Someone came bounding down the corridor. Tobio glimpsed something orange and without a single conscious thought he was already moving and pushing past the woman.

Shouyou looked not a day older. As if the past seven years were a dream, just a dream, dream, dream, such an unbearably long dream-

There was a moment of doubt when Tobio wondered if Shouyou would even recognize him, but then Shouyou’s face lit up and in the next second Shouyou was taking a step back and vaulting over the barriers, leaping into the air.

Tobio opened his arms; somehow, it felt right, to catch Shouyou as Shouyou dropped from the sky. In the next moment Tobio’s arms were full, Shouyou’s hair filling his vision, and the heat of Shouyou’s body molding into his own.

“You’re late,” Tobio whispered into the crown of Shouyou’s hair.

“Sorry,” Shouyou said, his voice strangled. “My bus didn’t come?”

Tobio snorted, but it sounded more like a sniffle than a laugh, and tightened his hold, determined to not have even an inch of space between Shouyou and him. “Dumbass.”

**Author's Note:**

> [linumlea.tumblr.com](https://linumlea.tumblr.com)


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